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Psychology
USA
2026

D-Index & Metrics

Neuroscience

D-Index
129
Citations
83595
World Ranking
281
National Ranking
172

Psychology

D-Index
129
Citations
83380
World Ranking
174
National Ranking
110

Research.com Recognitions

  • 2026 - Research.com Psychology in United States Leader Award
  • 2025 - Research.com Psychology in United States Leader Award
  • 1998 - Fellow of Alfred P. Sloan Foundation

Overview

Ralph Adolphs is affiliated with the California Institute of Technology in the United States. Their research primarily focuses on Neuroscience and Psychology, with significant contributions to subfields including Cognitive Neuroscience, Experimental and Cognitive Psychology, Radiology, Nuclear Medicine and Imaging, Social Psychology, and Clinical Psychology.

Their work encompasses a variety of main topics, such as:

  • Functional Brain Connectivity Studies
  • Neural dynamics and brain function
  • Autism Spectrum Disorder Research
  • Neural and Behavioral Psychology Studies
  • Mental Health Research Topics
  • Advanced Neuroimaging Techniques and Applications
  • Face Recognition and Perception

Adolphs has published extensively, with frequent venues including:

  • bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory)
  • Trends in Cognitive Sciences
  • Nature Human Behaviour
  • Nature Communications
  • Scientific Data

Several notable recent papers illustrate the scope of their research activities. These include:

  • "The rise of affectivism" (2021) in Nature Human Behaviour
  • "Flexible recruitment of memory-based choice representations by the human medial frontal cortex" (2020) in Science
  • "The geometry of domain-general performance monitoring in the human medial frontal cortex" (2022) in Science
  • "Common fronto-temporal effective connectivity in humans and monkeys" (2021) in Neuron
  • "Four dimensions characterize attributions from faces using a representative set of English trait words" (2021) in Nature Communications

Co-authorship has been an important aspect of Adolphs' research, collaborating frequently with the following colleagues:

  • Lynn K. Paul
  • Ueli Rutishauser
  • Adam N. Mamelak
  • Hiroyuki Oya
  • Matthew A. Howard

In recognition of their contributions to science, Ralph Adolphs was awarded the title of Fellow of the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation in 1998.

Best Publications

  • Impaired recognition of emotion in facial expressions following bilateral damage to the human amygdala.

    R. Adolphs;D. Tranel;H. Damasio;H. Damasio;A. Damasio;A. Damasio

  • Neural systems for recognizing emotion.

    Ralph Adolphs

  • Cognitive neuroscience of human social behaviour.

    Ralph Adolphs

  • Damage to the prefrontal cortex increases utilitarian moral judgements

    Michael Koenigs;Liane Young;Ralph Adolphs;Ralph Adolphs;Daniel Tranel

  • The Social Brain: Neural Basis of Social Knowledge

    Ralph Adolphs

  • The neurobiology of social cognition

    Ralph Adolphs

  • Double dissociation of conditioning and declarative knowledge relative to the amygdala and hippocampus in humans

    Antoine Bechara;Daniel Tranel;Hanna Damasio;Ralph Adolphs

  • Emotion processing and the amygdala: from a 'low road' to 'many roads' of evaluating biological significance

    Luiz Pessoa;Ralph Adolphs

  • Recognizing emotion from facial expressions: psychological and neurological mechanisms.

    Ralph Adolphs

  • The human amygdala in social judgment

    Ralph Adolphs;Daniel Tranel;Antonio R. Damasio;Antonio R. Damasio

  • A mechanism for impaired fear recognition after amygdala damage

    Ralph Adolphs;Ralph Adolphs;Frederic Gosselin;Tony W. Buchanan;Daniel Tranel

  • Fear and the human amygdala

    Ralph Adolphs;Daniel Tranel;Hanna Damasio;Antonio R. Damasio

  • Neural Systems Responding to Degrees of Uncertainty in Human Decision-Making

    Ming Hsu;Meghana Bhatt;Meghana Bhatt;Ralph Adolphs;Ralph Adolphs;Daniel Tranel;Daniel Tranel

  • A Role for Somatosensory Cortices in the Visual Recognition of Emotion as Revealed by Three-Dimensional Lesion Mapping

    Ralph Adolphs;Hanna Damasio;Hanna Damasio;Daniel Tranel;Greg Cooper

  • Emotional Expressions Reconsidered: Challenges to Inferring Emotion From Human Facial Movements:

    Lisa Feldman Barrett;Ralph Adolphs;Stacy Marsella;Stacy Marsella;Aleix M. Martinez

  • Interoception and Mental Health: A Roadmap

    Unknown

  • Social cognition and the human brain

    Ralph Adolphs

  • Recognition of facial emotion in nine individuals with bilateral amygdala damage.

    R Adolphs;D Tranel;S Hamann;A.W Young

  • Cortical Systems for the Recognition of Emotion in Facial Expressions

    Ralph Adolphs;Hanna Damasio;Hanna Damasio;Daniel Tranel;Antonio R. Damasio;Antonio R. Damasio

  • What does the amygdala contribute to social cognition

    Ralph Adolphs

  • Abnormal Processing of Social Information from Faces in Autism

    Ralph Adolphs;Lonnie Sears;Joseph Piven

Frequent Co-Authors

Daniel Tranel
Daniel Tranel University of Iowa
Antonio R. Damasio
Antonio R. Damasio University of Southern California
Matthew A. Howard
Matthew A. Howard University of Iowa
Hanna Damasio
Hanna Damasio University of Southern California
Daniel P. Kennedy
Daniel P. Kennedy Indiana University
Hiroyuki Oya
Hiroyuki Oya University of Iowa
Ueli Rutishauser
Ueli Rutishauser Cedars-Sinai Medical Center
Hiroto Kawasaki
Hiroto Kawasaki University of Iowa
Tony W. Buchanan
Tony W. Buchanan Saint Louis University
Jan Gläscher
Jan Gläscher Universität Hamburg

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